"Ignore all other advice except this – write a good story. Here’s why. Think about the stories you read as a kid, or a young adult, or even last year. All the ones that really stuck with you. Now ask yourself why you remember them? Is it because they were paperback instead of ebooks? Or because they had a good editor? Or the cover art was exceptional? No. I’m betting that 99 times out of 100, it’s because of the story. Something about it touched you. Those are the ones you remember, and those are the ones you recommend. So write a good story. All the rest of the stuff you can worry about later."

Tag: audiobooks

I had a different blog post planned for today, the first in a series of epic rants about how people are dumb and how they don’t have to be. But that post isn’t quite ready for publication just yet. So while I tweak and massage my rage-filled meltdown essay, I’m going to cheat this afternoon and put out a nice, easy Coming Soon post to tide you guys over for the week. Plenty of goodness to talk about, though, so don’t get your pitchforks in a pickle.

Audiobook news

First things first… The Descent – Rise of Cithria Book 2 is now available as an audiobook! It’s again narrated by Kevin Clay, who is an amazing voice actor, and he proves it once again on this book, handling 20+ characters with ease and grace. If you loved the first book (and I know a LOT of you did because you told me all about it) make sure to get the followup. And if you haven’t listened to the first book, go grab that one too!

Finishing up our newest Cithria book, The Exodus, is still an ongoing process. If I had to guess, we’re looking at a release date sometime this summer, although knowing us and our limited time these days with all these babies going ’round, I’d say that’s an optimistic guess. We’re past the halfway point, but there’s still a lot of work to do, including edits, polishing, formatting, etc. I’d be surprised if we don’t have copies at the Comic Con in September/October, though.

If you just so happen to be inclined to get yourself involved in finishing the next book, then I do have some good news for ya. We can use some help with the cover, specifically what it should be. If you’re a fan of the series, you’ll know we put a lot of work into those spectacular covers, and we want to make sure we make this one just as iconic as the rest. We still have a few weeks before we start working on that, however, so we might do something fun this time and round up some suggestions from readers. I’ll post something a bit more official on that later, but if you have some early ideas you want to throw out, post them in the comments below!

Also, to help tide people over from their Cithria withdrawals, Alistair and I are writing some short stories set in the Cithria universe that we hope to release sometime in the VERY NEAR FUTURE. I can’t say when, exactly, or how, as we need to figure out a lot of the publishing logistics, but I’m pretty sure at least one of the stories will get released online, on this very site, in a chapter-by-chapter basis before getting packaged up as an actual book/ebook/zine. Alistair’s story is still a work-in-progress, but mine should be done within a couple weeks, so look for that story, Nightmare, to appear sometime in March.

Dallas Comic Con/Fan Expo Dallas

We were not at the February Comic Con, a first for our little group of authors. But, as of now, our plan is to be at the show in Dallas this June. There are some complications regarding the due date of a certain baby boy, but we’ll do our best to work around that, and we’ll hope and pray that he’s born either sometime before or after that particular weekend. Assuming there aren’t any major layout changes, I’m also hoping we’ll be in the same spot as last year, which means it’ll be REALLY HARD to miss us. We’ll have a little bit of new stuff, including Tales of the Lore Valley, and some short stories, along with some artwork, so be sure to drop by and check that out. Or, just drop by and say hi. Or just leave us food and money. Whatever. We’re not picky.

Half Price Books

I’ve been taking part in some events at the Half Price Books in Frisco, near Stonebriar Mall, and with several more appearances on the docket, that particular store has become something of a home base for myself, Demethius Jackson, and Jan Sikes. We’ll continue to do some signings, readings, and workshops over the course of the year at that location, so if you’re in the area make sure to keep an eye out for times when one or all of us will be at the store. The workshops will actually be creative writing workshops, hosted by published authors, so if you’ve ever wanted to get into writing, and based on how many people I meet who tell me THAT VERY EXACT THING, then these workshops will be exactly what you need. I don’t have dates or official details on those just yet, but I’ll post them as things get finalized.

Also, we’d love to make all this work HPB is doing amount to something, so be sure to hit the store even when we aren’t there, buy some stuff, and tell them your favorite local authors sent you! Hopefully they’ll know you’re talking about me…